


Fools

by supercoollock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU- if the canon went only a little differently, Angst, Depression, Established Relationship, M/M, PTSD, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:23:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercoollock/pseuds/supercoollock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were fine until the angels took Cas and gave him back wrong. Empty. A month later, Dean wakes up at three am and Cas is gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fools

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I wrote this based on the song Fool by Cat Power, idk man I just wanted to write something sad?

 

Dean wakes up on his side with a sinking feeling. He fumbles for the alarm clock on the bedside table, turning to towards him. It’s three AM. He grunts and rolls onto his side, reaching for Cas but finding his side of the bed empty. His eyes scan the cramped room but Cas isn’t there. Dean’s heart stops. He scrambles out of the frayed motel sheets and runs to the bathroom, hoping to god that Cas hasn’t locked himself in there again. But the bathroom door swings open, unlocked, to reveal that Cas isn’t there either.

This makes it much worse.

Dean grabs a worn pair of jeans and a dirty plaid shirt off of a chair, pulling them on as he runs out of the door. He doesn’t call Sam, because why would he need to? It’s probably nothing. He hopes it’s nothing.

Gunning the impala, Dean reminds himself of the terrible things that happen when Cas winds up alone.

Twenty one days ago, Cas ran off in the middle of the night. After him and Sam making half-dozen frantic calls, they found him at the police station wrapped in a shock blanket. The officers explained that he had run out onto the freeway and that a concerned citizen had brought him in. After they gave him a breathalyzer, they were able to drive him home but no matter how they phrased their questions, Cas wouldn’t explain anything. That night, Cas stopped sleeping in Dean’s bed.

Thirteen days ago, they were staying in a motel in Colorado that was even dingier than usual. Cas wouldn’t speak to Dean most of the time, and when he did it was only to ramble about rats and cockroaches and perseverance. Worryingly enough, his behaviour was reminiscent of the insane Cas from a couple of years ago. Dean chose to ignore it and go out on a hunt, but when he came back to the motel, he found Cas curled into the far corner of the room. He shot a hole in a motel ceiling after being startled. Dean sat with him for an hour calming him down.

Six days ago, he locked himself in the bathroom and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. Dean had to break the door down and drive him to the hospital to get his stomach pumped. They started sleeping in the same bed that night though, which Dean counts as a pathetic, tiny plus.

He swerves around corners and runs two red lights in his frantic, desperate search. Clenching his fingers tighter around the wheel,

They never bring any of it up again.

Eventually, Dean finds Cas a couple of blocks away from the motel, staring blankly at a vending machine. Dean immediately notices that he’s wearing his old trench coat and his stomach drops. 

                He pulls the car over on the opposite side of the road and rests his head on the wheel, breathing out a silent sigh. He walks out of the impala and shuts the door gently, preparing to hide his confusion and fear; Cas is very good at noticing distress, less skilled in handling it. He walks over to Cas, close enough so that he knows Cas can see that he’s there, and leans against the wall. He looks Cas over from scuffed boot to artfully mussed hair, silently noting that he looks remarkably the same as on the day they first met. 

“Cas,” he says, breaking the silence, “its Dean. What the hell are you doing here, man?” He laughs nervously, placing his hand on Cas’ shoulder, trying to get him to turn to him so that he can check his face for cuts and bruises. Wishes that he could see how long he’d been gone for.

“I’m trying to decide which soft drink to get,” Cas states matter-of-factly, still facing the machine.

Dean would laugh if the statement wasn’t so strange. It sounded like the Cas from a couple of years ago, and Dean didn’t want to think about confused, joking, human appreciating Cas. He had fucked up that Cas.

“Dean, I know you’re hurting,” Cas said, tuning to him.

Dean waits for the inevitable non-sequitur, breakdown, or complete silence for three months after this, but what happens is even more surprising.

“I understand your confusion, but I think I’ve figured it out,” Cas says.

Dean figures that it’s probably some bullshit about bees again or something, but he decides to say something anyways, just to get it off his chest, “Yeah Cas, I get it too, I’m not a fucking idiot. Everyone gets it. That was the point. It’s not why I’m upset,” he pauses, his breath catching in his throat.

“It’s because after all the shit we’ve been through – that you’ve been through, we deserve more than this. Pining after each other for six fucking years, not to mention the like, five goddamn times you’ve died. And then there were the angels fucking around with your head, and when you tried to be god, and when you went crazy, and oh yeah, let’s not forget when the angels fucked with your head again, and even when we finally – finally!  Got together, it was so bad for a while Cas, do you remember?”

“You’d disappear for days, and I’d scream at you when you came back, as if I as any better. Still half in the closet, I’d go out and fuck some nameless girl at a bar and when I came home you’d be standing there, all righteous anger. But you’d fucking be there.”

“We got our shit together though, for a while. It was pretty good, you me and Sam? We made up bullshit nicknames and fucking in the back of the car and we were happy. We had a chance. Then out of nowhere, they took you from me and I couldn’t do anything. They did something to you, I don’t know what but it was something. You can’t talk to me, you can hardly sleep, and you’re human,” Dean thought to himself that it was a fitting torture, to see his marble warrior turn to flesh.

“It’s so fucked up Cas and I can’t do anything about it. The only thing that they made perfectly clear was that they did it because you were with me. Now you’re only half here, and I don’t know if I can do this, if I can stand here and watch you waste away because of me,” his vision blurs and he realises that he was talking too loudly.

  He stares at Cas, who in turn, stares at the fucking vending machine. He wants to grab him and shake him and scream something but he just stares in silence until Cas says something.

“So you figured it out too,” Cas says, looking at his feet, “I want to sit down now.”

“Yeah sure buddy,” Dean wraps his arm around Cas and brings him to the curb. They sit there for a while, with Cas’ fingers curled underneath Dean’s. The most feared hunter in the world crying on the curb, hand in hand with a fallen angel.

“Where’s Sam?” Cas turns to Dean confused, “You always call him.”

“I didn’t this time,” Dean’s reply seems to satisfy Cas, and it sounds a hell of a lot better than, ‘ _if I called Sam that makes this real and not a terrible dream’_ or _‘if you had died I wanted to be the one to find you’._

Dean stands up abruptly, pulling Cas with him, “Come on, let’s get you home.”

The ride to the motel is silent apart from a couple coughs and the shuffling of feet. Their room is how they left it, which is messy. Dean tucks Cas into bed, pressing his lips to Cas’ forehead.

“I’m just going to have a beer then I’ll come to bed, okay?” Dean says while pulling one out of a cooler. Cas gives a mumbled okay, so Dean settles down at a chair facing the bed and watches Cas drift to sleep.  It ends up being more than a few beers and Dean thinks that that’s probably one of the last fluent conversations he’ll have with Cas for months. He knows it isn’t the end of the world and somehow that makes it worse. He can deal with worlds ending.

It is way too quiet for him, so he flips open his laptop and pulls up a playlist of songs that Cas downloaded when he was just discovering human music. The first song sounds like something Cas would like; a woman’s smoky voice backed by a quiet, haunting guitar. It’s a beautiful song, but it just makes him feel worse. It forces him to think of what he did wrong and the only thing he can think of is not be there, for Cas or anyone else he’d cared about.

                So Dean doesn’t waste another second. He crawls into bed beside Cas in his jacket and boots and wraps an arm around him, tracing his fingers into Cas’. He nudges himself closer to Cas and falls asleep dreaming of a world where he saved him.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok hope you enjoyed! I reallllly appreciate comments, tips etc so if you have any please share! 'tis all for now.


End file.
